The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is the treaty concluded in Moscow on 23 August 1939 between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Officially named the “Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”, it was signed by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet Foreign Commissar Vyacheslav Molotov — in Stalin's presence. In reality it was an agreement between two dictatorships to divide Europe: the pact's secret additional protocol carved Eastern Europe into “spheres of influence” and led directly to the Second World War and the occupation of Estonia.
The secret protocol
The public treaty promised mutual non-aggression for ten years. But the secret additional protocol — whose existence the USSR denied for half a century — decreed: Estonia, Latvia, Finland and Bessarabia would belong to the Soviet sphere of influence, Lithuania initially to Germany's; Poland would be divided along the line of the Narew, Vistula and San rivers. On 28 September 1939 — the same day the bases treaty was forced on Estonia — Germany and the USSR concluded the Boundary and Friendship Treaty in Moscow, swapping Lithuania into the Soviet sphere. On 10 January 1941 Germany sold the USSR the last remaining “strip of Lithuania” by secret protocol — for 7.5 million US dollars. Two dictatorships traded peoples and territories like goods.
The consequences: war and occupations
On 1 September 1939 Germany invaded Poland; on 17 September the USSR invaded from the east. On 22 September German and Soviet troops held a joint victory parade at Brest-Litovsk. The USSR then moved to claim its “sphere”:
Estonia — on 28 September 1939 a bases treaty was forced on it under threat of arms (25,000 Red Army troops at Paldiski, Saaremaa and Hiiumaa); the Red Army crossed the border on 18 October 1939. Read: A dance of death between two devils.
Latvia — a bases treaty on 5 October 1939 (30,000 troops); Lithuania — on 10 October 1939 (20,000 troops).
Finland refused — on 30 November 1939 the USSR attacked (the Winter War). Finland lost the Karelian Isthmus but defended its independence.
In June 1940 the USSR occupied all three Baltic states: ultimatums on 14–16 June, the Red Army in on 15–17 June (in Estonia on 17 June 1940). After staged elections Estonia was annexed on 6 August 1940.
On 14 June 1941 the occupation authorities deported about 10,000 people from Estonia to Siberia — the bearers of statehood: officials, officers, entrepreneurs, farmers and their families; about 6,000 of them perished.
The pact held until 22 June 1941, when Germany attacked the USSR — the two accomplices turned on each other. See also: The Soviet Union needed help and The Continuation War.
Fifty years of denial
The USSR denied the secret protocol's existence for half a century. The German copy survived on microfilm, reached the West and was published in 1948 in the U.S. State Department volume Nazi-Soviet Relations 1939–1941. Only on 24 December 1989 did the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR — on the findings of Alexander Yakovlev's commission — acknowledge the secret protocol's existence, condemn it, and declare it legally null and void from the moment of signing.
Estonian resistance and memory
The pact's anniversary became the symbol of resistance to the occupation — and Estonians were among the first:
On 23 August 1986 the Estonian diaspora — led by Markus Hess of the Estonian Central Council in Canada — organised the first Black Ribbon Day demonstrations in 21 Western cities.
On 23 August 1987 the Hirvepark meeting took place in Tallinn — the first large demonstration in occupied Estonia independent of the authorities (up to 7,000 participants by various estimates). It was organised by MRP-AEG — the Estonian Group for the Publication of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (founded 15 August 1987 by Tiit Madisson, Lagle Parek, Heiki Ahonen and Erik Udam) — demanding publication of the secret protocols and the liquidation of their consequences.
On 23 August 1989, the pact's 50th anniversary, stood the Baltic Way: an unbroken human chain from Tallinn through Riga to Vilnius — about 2 million people, over 600 km. In Estonia it was organised by the Rahvarinne (Popular Front). In 2009 its documentary heritage was added to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.
Today 23 August is the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism (Black Ribbon Day), confirmed by the European Parliament in 2008–2009.
The legal significance for Estonia
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocol were the direct cause of Estonia's occupation: the sphere allocation → the forced bases treaty → the June 1940 ultimatum, occupation and annexation. The secret protocol was unlawful from the moment it was signed — as the USSR itself confirmed in 1989. The Western states never recognised the annexation de jure: the Republic of Estonia's legations continued to operate, and the state's legal continuity — founded on the Tartu Peace Treaty — remained unbroken. That is why 20 August 1991 is the restoration of the independence of the same state proclaimed in 1918 — not the creation of a new one. The price of the occupation — the deportations, the destroyed communities, the desecrated sacred sites — began with a single signature in Moscow. See also: Innocent Estonia and Nuremberg, Communist crimes against Estonia's minorities.
Sources
Molotovi-Ribbentropi pakt, Baaside leping and Juuniküüditamine (Estonian Wikipedia); Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Occupation of the Baltic states, Baltic Way, Hirvepark meeting, European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism (Wikipedia); Estonian Institute of Historical Memory / mnemosyne.ee — the secret protocol chronology and Meelis Maripuu's analysis.